Alan Shearer has revealed that he has a laugh with Ruud Gullit about 'what went on' at Newcastle United and the Magpies' legend has even told the Dutchman that he might still be in charge of the club today if he had just been a bit nicer.
Gullit took over from Kenny Dalglish in August, 1998 and led Newcastle to the FA Cup final in his first season, but all was not well behind the scenes.
Although the players had initially been excited to work with the former AC Milan superstar, Gullit did not endear himself to the dressing room with the way he treated a number of senior professionals during his time at the club.
Stuart Pearce was sent to train with the youth team; Rob Lee was not even handed a squad number at one point; and Gullit infamously dropped Alan Shearer and Duncan Ferguson for his final game in charge against Sunderland.
Gullit resigned just a few days after that Tyne-Wear derby defeat and Shearer is the first to admit that he 'probably would have had to' have left his boyhood club if the Magpies had won that night.
However, Shearer and Gullit have since worked together as pundits for the BBC and it has not been anywhere near as awkward as you might have imagined.
"Then and now are very different," Shearer told the Once Upon a Time on the Pitch podcast. "Then, well, it wasn't a relationship. I knew from day one that we weren't going to get on but now it's very different.
"We have a laugh about what went on and he apologised. He said, 'You know what us Dutch were like. I was young, I was arrogant and I got one or two things wrong' and he apologised.
"We get on great now because we've worked in television together many times. I actually said to him, 'If you were as nice now as you were then, you might still be the manager of Newcastle!'"
